Pak in list of US panel’s list of 13 violators of religious freedom

Washington, Apr.30 : A US governmental panel has included Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China in a list of 13 countries that have seriously violated religious freedoms.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, described the countries where religious freedom is endangered as ‘hot spots’, and called upon the US Government to take steps to improve conditions in those nations.
“It is a small but critically important point of intersection of foreign policy, national security and international religious freedom standards,” the report stated.
This year’s list of countries included all eight nations named last year where religious freedom is being attacked besides five new countries like Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.
The panel’s report said that though Saudi Arabia has implemented several steps to cut the violation of religious freedom, there has been a “systematic, egregious and ongoing” breach of religious freedom.
Leonard Leo, the panel’s chairman said that visits to the ‘hot spots’ had found situations “where freedom of religion is obstructed and related human rights are trampled.”
“In China, the government continues to engage in systematic and egregious violations of the freedom of religion or belief,” The Daily Times quoted the report, as saying.
Leo said the report offers important foreign policy solutions that should be implemented by the respective government’s and the US should also urge the nations named in the list to take those into consideration.
“The report’s conclusion is clear, the administration must do more,” he said. (ANI)

Mosques reopen in China's Xinjiang under heavy security

Ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese Muslims pray together during Friday prayers at Yang Hang mosque in the city of Urumqi in China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region July 17, 2009. Security remains heavy in ethnic Uighur neighbourhoods of Xinjiang regional capital Urumqi after riots on July 5 between the Muslim Uighur minority and majority Han Chinese wounded more than 1,600. The official Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday that 192 people were killed in the riots, and that around 1,000 people have been detained. (REUTERS/David Gray)

URUMQI (Reuters) - Mosques reopened for Friday prayers under the watchful eyes of security troops in Urumqi, a riot-torn city on China's far western frontier where 192 people were killed in ethnic attacks earlier this month.

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Many of the mosques had been closed for Friday prayers last week after Uighurs attacked Han Chinese in Urumqi on July 5, although in a few cases they briefly opened when crowds formed at their doors.

All of the 433 mosques were open this week, China's official Xinhua news agency said.

Although businesses in Urumqi were returning to normal, Internet access in the restive region is still cut. Telephone reception is intermittent.

Xinjiang is home to the Muslim Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people with cultural ties to central Asia, who now make up just under half of the region's 20 million people.

Many resent decades of migration by Han Chinese, who they say benefit from economic growth, and also resent religious and cultural discrimination.

The streets around the White mosque, where a brief protest broke out after prayers last week, were closed to traffic, but pedestrians were allowed in, some after showing their identification.

At the Yang Hang mosque, the prayer session was shortened to about 20 minutes, compared to the normal duration of over an hour, but worshippers filed in and out smoothly.

The Urumqi attacks on Han Chinese shops and pedestrians broke out after police stopped a demonstration protesting the deaths of two Uighur workers attacked by their Han Chinese coworkers in a faraway factory near the Hong Kong border.

Han Chinese took to the streets in revenge two days later.

‘Religious freedoms in Turkey curbed by hard-line secularism’

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom questions a Constitutional Court decision to overrule a constitutional amendment to let women wear Islamic headscarves at universities that was passed by a wide majority in Parliament.

A report presented to US President Barack Obama has added Turkey to a watch list of countries where people's right to worship as they please or not to worship at all are at risk.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom said Turkey's problem was its interpretation of secularism, which has "resulted in violations of religious freedom for many of the country's citizens, including members of majority and, especially, minority religious communities." The report questioned the Constitutional Court's decision to overrule a constitutional amendment to let women wear Islamic headscarves at universities that was passed by a wide majority in Parliament.
Despite the government's efforts to lift the long-standing ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities by amending the Constitution in 2008, the Constitutional Court annulled the legislation and the ban remains in effect. In the same period, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) was faced with a closure case filed by Supreme Court of Appeals' Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya mainly due to its move to lift the headscarf ban.
The US report is the most extensive of its kind in the commission's 10-year history, documenting serious abuses of freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief around the world. Besides Turkey, the commission added Russia, Laos, Somalia, Tajikistan, Venezuela and Indonesia to its list, increasing the number of countries "requiring close monitoring due to the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by the governments" to 11. Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba and Egypt had already been placed on the list last year.
The commission also criticized Turkish state policies refusing to recognize religious minorities as legal entities and denying non-Muslim communities' legal and religious rights, such as the right to own and maintain property, train religious clergy and offer religious education. However, the report is particularly significant because it also notes that the religious rights and freedoms of the country's religious majority, Sunni Muslims, are not respected, either. The European Union, in particular, has received harsh criticism from civil society for continuously ignoring the situation of Muslims in Turkey in annual progress reports that have been prepared by the European Commission since 1998. EU officials have on many occasions told the Turkish press that they are not to mention the headscarf issue, for example, in their progress reports on human rights in Turkey because there is no consensus in Europe on the matter.
At the start of April, the US commission wrote President Obama, urging him to raise the issue of religious freedom during his trip to Turkey, which took place on April 6-7. Obama met with President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as well as the leaders of political parties represented in Parliament during his two-day visit to the country.
Praising the role played by civil society, the media and political parties in softening the state's strict understanding of secularism and pushing for religious freedoms for all, the commission's work, nevertheless, stressed the state's poor understanding of religious rights. The report also cited the US State Department's report on religious freedom for 2008. In that report, it was stated that "the government of Turkey generally respected religious freedom in practice; however, the government imposes limitations on Islamic and other religious groups and significant restrictions on Islamic religious expression in government offices and state-run institutions, including universities, for the stated reason of preserving the secular state."
Several other countries were reprimanded in the report, too. In Russia, for example, it found objectionable "a new body in the Ministry of Justice with unprecedented powers to control and monitor religious groups" that was established early in 2009. It also decried "increasing violations of religious freedom by state officials, particularly against allegedly 'non-traditional' religious groups and Muslims." In 2007 a Russian court banned Russian translations of the works of Said Nursi, a Turkish Islamic scholar who has inspired hundreds of thousands of people in Turkey with his books collectively known as the "Risale-i Nur."
Aside from the 11 countries on the watch list, there are 13 countries designated as "countries of particular concern" (CPC):
Burma, Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, where "egregious violations of religious freedoms" prevail.
Nigeria qualified for "particular concern" because its response to violations of religious freedom and sectarian and communal conflicts was "inadequate and ineffectual." It blamed federal, state and local authorities for failing to stop violence that the commission said has killed thousands.
The State Department's official list of countries of particular concern includes only Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan.

‘Religious freedoms in Turkey curbed by hard-line secularism’

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom questions a Constitutional Court decision to overrule a constitutional amendment to let women wear Islamic headscarves at universities that was passed by a wide majority in Parliament.

A report presented to US President Barack Obama has added Turkey to a watch list of countries where people's right to worship as they please or not to worship at all are at risk.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom said Turkey's problem was its interpretation of secularism, which has "resulted in violations of religious freedom for many of the country's citizens, including members of majority and, especially, minority religious communities." The report questioned the Constitutional Court's decision to overrule a constitutional amendment to let women wear Islamic headscarves at universities that was passed by a wide majority in Parliament.
Despite the government's efforts to lift the long-standing ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities by amending the Constitution in 2008, the Constitutional Court annulled the legislation and the ban remains in effect. In the same period, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) was faced with a closure case filed by Supreme Court of Appeals' Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya mainly due to its move to lift the headscarf ban.
The US report is the most extensive of its kind in the commission's 10-year history, documenting serious abuses of freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief around the world. Besides Turkey, the commission added Russia, Laos, Somalia, Tajikistan, Venezuela and Indonesia to its list, increasing the number of countries "requiring close monitoring due to the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by the governments" to 11. Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba and Egypt had already been placed on the list last year.
The commission also criticized Turkish state policies refusing to recognize religious minorities as legal entities and denying non-Muslim communities' legal and religious rights, such as the right to own and maintain property, train religious clergy and offer religious education. However, the report is particularly significant because it also notes that the religious rights and freedoms of the country's religious majority, Sunni Muslims, are not respected, either. The European Union, in particular, has received harsh criticism from civil society for continuously ignoring the situation of Muslims in Turkey in annual progress reports that have been prepared by the European Commission since 1998. EU officials have on many occasions told the Turkish press that they are not to mention the headscarf issue, for example, in their progress reports on human rights in Turkey because there is no consensus in Europe on the matter.
At the start of April, the US commission wrote President Obama, urging him to raise the issue of religious freedom during his trip to Turkey, which took place on April 6-7. Obama met with President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as well as the leaders of political parties represented in Parliament during his two-day visit to the country.
Praising the role played by civil society, the media and political parties in softening the state's strict understanding of secularism and pushing for religious freedoms for all, the commission's work, nevertheless, stressed the state's poor understanding of religious rights. The report also cited the US State Department's report on religious freedom for 2008. In that report, it was stated that "the government of Turkey generally respected religious freedom in practice; however, the government imposes limitations on Islamic and other religious groups and significant restrictions on Islamic religious expression in government offices and state-run institutions, including universities, for the stated reason of preserving the secular state."
Several other countries were reprimanded in the report, too. In Russia, for example, it found objectionable "a new body in the Ministry of Justice with unprecedented powers to control and monitor religious groups" that was established early in 2009. It also decried "increasing violations of religious freedom by state officials, particularly against allegedly 'non-traditional' religious groups and Muslims." In 2007 a Russian court banned Russian translations of the works of Said Nursi, a Turkish Islamic scholar who has inspired hundreds of thousands of people in Turkey with his books collectively known as the "Risale-i Nur."
Aside from the 11 countries on the watch list, there are 13 countries designated as "countries of particular concern" (CPC):
Burma, Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, where "egregious violations of religious freedoms" prevail.
Nigeria qualified for "particular concern" because its response to violations of religious freedom and sectarian and communal conflicts was "inadequate and ineffectual." It blamed federal, state and local authorities for failing to stop violence that the commission said has killed thousands.
The State Department's official list of countries of particular concern includes only Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan.